ARNOLD LAW’S COMMENTS ON FBI COVER-UP
The public deserved to have the video, with audio and sound, released immediately after the shooting. Now we know why it wasn’t released: the public would have heard the shots that the government didn’t want it to hear. The government should not be afraid of the public asking questions. They should encourage it. Discourse, dialogue, and criticism of the government are the bedrock of democracy.
The post-shooting FBI press conference was all to prejudice the jury, which is exactly why attorneys need to be able to speak on behalf of their clients. The answer is more speech not less. There is no prejudice of a jury when facts are released that would be heard by the jury anyway. The FBI was picking and choosing those facts. That is wrong.
Now we know why the Government is seeking a protective order trying to gag Ammon Bundy from talking about discovery.
In State v. Oliphant, this Oregon case discusses a person’s right to use physical force against a police officer in self-defense during an arrest. In Oregon, a person’s right to use force in self-defense depends on a person’s own reasonable belief in the necessity for such action, not whether the force used or about to be used on him actually was unlawful. The key here is the defendant’s reasonable belief. If a reasonable person in Finicum’s position would have believed that the use or imminent use of force against him exceeded the force reasonably necessary to affect the arrest, then he was entitled to defend himself from that use of force, i.e., by grabbing for a weapon.
The mere voicing of frustration with the government coupled with an assertion of the lawful authority to defend oneself against attack, is not a threat. But shooting at a stopped vehicle is. Finnicum wouldn’t have known that it was a less-than-lethal round. They just perceived gunshots and fled.
If the Federal Government knew that this alleged cover-up was happening, why did the FBI continue to lead the investigation? Why didn’t they bring in Deschutes County to investigate the protest site? Grant County? ATF? Anyone but the FBI who was under criminal investigation themselves.
They knew who he was.
They knew where he was living and where he was going.
His driving posed no kind of threat until he was boxed in.
And no one had been involved with any kind of life-threatening felony.
Just because he said they were going to have to kill him didnt give them the freedom to do so or even make it necessary.